Using your voice assistant on multiple devices can get a little tricky. “Mike” from St. George, Utah, finds himself in comical yet frustrating situations when using his personal and work iPhones. Let's dive into his predicament and explore some solutions.
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A man making a call using Siri on his iPhone (Kurt “Cyber Guy” Knutson)
dilemma
Mike has two iPhones, one for personal use and one for work. In an email to us, he explained his problem: “When I use Siri to call my wife (Terry) on my personal phone, the phone calls the same guy I work with named Terry from my work phone. So I always have to explain myself. You have to call him. ”
This makes for awkward explanations and unnecessary “butt dialing”. This situation highlights a common challenge faced by many users of multiple devices, where voice assistants can be more of a hindrance than a help.
Siri used on iPhone (Kurt “Cyber Guy” Knutson)
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Attempted solutions
Mike's first attempt was to change the name of his wife's contact on his personal phone to “Wifey”. However, this didn't completely solve the problem, as Siri still had trouble distinguishing between similarly-sounding names across devices. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't allow users to change the Siri launch phrase to a custom phrase like “Hey Wife.” This limitation means that you need to look for alternative solutions.
iPhone and laptop on coffee table (Kurt “Cyber Guy” Knutson)
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Effective workaround
1) Use Siri Shortcuts. You can create a Siri shortcut to call your wife and assign it a unique phrase. That way, saying something like “Call my wife” will only trigger on the phone that has the shortcut set up.
Create a shortcut
- Open. shortcut app On your iPhone.
- Tap. “+” icon Create a new shortcut.
- Add an action phone Select your wife's contact information.
- click end
Steps to create Siri shortcuts on iPhone (Kurt “Cyber Guy” Knutson)
Use voice control: You can enable voice control and create custom commands that don't interfere with Siri.
- go to setting
- tap accessibility
- clickk Voice control
- turn on voice control By switching on
- Click. command line
Steps to set up voice control on iPhone (Kurt “Cyber Guy” Knutson)
- click custom
- click Create a new command
- Enter the following in the phrase field: “Call my wife.”
- Click. action line
- Click “R”Remove shortcut
- click first line I just configured the settings called “Call” above.
- click return
- click keep in the upper right corner
Steps to set up voice control on iPhone (Kurt “Cyber Guy” Knutson)
- Go back to the home screen and say “Call my wife” to your phone and she should call you.
2) Disable Siri on one device. If you primarily use Siri on one phone, you can disable Siri on the other phone to prevent accidental triggers.
- Go to Ssetting
- tap Siri (Or it may appear as Siri & Search, depending on which iOS you have installed).
- tap Talk to Siri
- erase Listen to “Hey Siri” and enable Press the side button to activate Siri
Steps to disable Siri on iPhone (Kurt “Cyber Guy” Knutson)
3) Change the contact's name to something else. Since you are already trying to change the name of your wife's contact, you may want to use a more unique name that does not conflict with your work contact. For example, you can use a nickname or a combination of her name and a unique identifier.
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Cart important points
Siri's confusion can be frustrating, but there are ways to avoid this problem. The most effective solution seems to be using Siri Shortcuts or voice control. These methods create unique commands that are less likely to be misunderstood across devices. It is worth noting that voice assistant technology is continually improving. In the future, we may see more sophisticated context awareness that can better distinguish between similar names on different devices. Until then, these workarounds should help Mike avoid any more awkward explanations to his colleague Terry.
How do you think voice assistants can be improved to improve the user experience? Email us at. Cyberguy.com/Contact.
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